Biden-Xi Summit
The US and China have agreed to work together toward an expected summit between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping next month, US officials announced on Friday. This decision came after hours of meetings between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and senior US diplomats in Washington.
In the first visit by a Chinese foreign minister to Washington since 2018, veteran diplomat Wang Yi also met Biden for an hour. The White House described these talks as a “good opportunity” to maintain open lines of communication between the two geopolitical rivals with deep policy differences.
Wang’s meetings with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, spanning over two days, totaled nine hours, with US officials describing these interactions as “candid and in-depth.”
During these meetings, Biden’s top aides raised Washington’s key concerns, including the need to restore military-to-military channels between the two countries, Beijing’s actions in the East and South China Sea, Taiwan, human rights, the flow of fentanyl precursors, and the cases of Americans detained in China. There were also “frank exchanges” between Blinken and Wang regarding the erupting conflict in the Middle East.
The key area that showed positive momentum was the expected Biden-Xi summit between Biden and Xi on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit next month in San Francisco.
“We are making preparations for such a meeting,” said one of the senior administration officials briefing reporters. “Obviously, Chinese leaders often confirm publicly much closer to a trip, so I will leave it to the Chinese side to figure out if and when they make that announcement.”
Wang told Biden that the objective of his visit was to help “stem the decline” in U.S.-China ties “with an eye on San Francisco,” without giving any details, according to a brief statement from the Chinese foreign ministry.
The foreign ministry readouts for Wang’s meetings with Blinken and Sullivan said that “both sides agreed to work together to achieve a meeting between the two heads of state in San Francisco.”
The Biden administration sees direct leader-level engagement with Xi as particularly important in managing tensions and preventing relations from veering into conflict.
Wang had conveyed to Blinken that the two countries have disagreements and need “in-depth” and “comprehensive” dialogue to reduce misunderstandings and stabilize ties.
Wang’s three-day visit followed a flurry of bilateral diplomatic engagements in recent months, largely at the US’s request, aimed at salvaging deteriorating ties. However, some in Washington questioned whether recent US cabinet-level visits to Beijing played into Beijing’s hand. U.S. officials maintained that increased diplomacy did not mean a let-up in policy.
Middle East Concerns in US-China Talks
The United States expressed deep concern about the Israel-Hamas conflict during Wang’s meetings and urged China to take a more constructive approach, including using its influence with Iran to promote calm in the region.
China has condemned violence and attacks on civilians in the conflict, and the US also raised concerns about China’s recent actions in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, including its obstruction of the Philippine resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal and an unsafe intercept of a US aircraft.
